Almwajaha

Название: ALMWAJAHA

Клиент: AlphaApps

Услуга: ALL INCLUSIVE DESIGN

Команда:Ilya Burakov,Viktor Gnedin,Kirill Tsyganyk,Roman Zolotorev

The largest Arabic trivia game developed according to specifics of Middle East users and aimed on distinctive features of end-users. The scope of work included design research, development of achievements and awards system as well as addition of corresponding areas of knowledge and categories.

Intro

We have analyzed an existing app, studied Google Analytics usage statistics and worked out the client’s suggestions. Based on acquired information we have drawn up a list of existing problems and weak spots in the app and also came up with ideas about possible ways of resolving them.

Key problems and solutions

The main problem of previous versions was it’s complexity and disaffection to new users. From our perspective these problems appeared because of the following factors:

01 Outdated visual design

02 Insufficient tutorial documentation

03 Lack of question difficulty differentiation

04 Lack of leagues separation in the ladder

05 Lack of incentives and motivation for users

06 Poorly elaborated award system

Design concept

There is a specified design pattern for mobile games development, so they are rarely different. Ways of visual representation are pretty common across all the apps, so it’s quite hard to find out the new approach without breaking the existing stereotypes.

Social integration is taking more and more important place in games such as Almwajaha. Playing with friends, communication during the game, ratings, group chatting, sharing to social networks: it’s hard to imagine an online game without these functions. Despite that, not everyone is paying enough attention to mentioned functionality during the visual design process. It is essential to make an involving gameplay, but it is only one side of design. Key point here is to combine and integrate gameplay mechanics with social components during developing.

We have refused standard visualisation patterns when the main screen appears to be a trivial list of rivals with their photos. A concept like this seems boring even for a simple puzzle game.

Instead of that, we have chosen far more modern solution: card-style interface design. This way does not only follows the latest app design trends, but also appears to be very flexible, interesting and convenient. Unlike the usual ways of content presentation, card-style design has a much wider sphere for artistic expression elements, animation and user interactions: it all leads to more pleasant feedback from users. Deeper immersion keeps the user interested which is one of our goals. Instead of simple entertaining the user with cute illustrations we give him the thing he really wants - communication with other gamers. That’s why we have risen the question of social integration before.

Useflow and fast prototypes

After finishing the research we have begun to develop the interface design process. At first, we have reworked all the user scenarios regarding the data we received after design research and updated navigation after adding new functionality. Later the user scenarios were used to form a sales funnel and to build a Push API logic.

First launch

Analytics results has shown that more than 80% of user log in with Facebook. That is why Facebook sign up was chosen as the main call-to-action on login screen. We have left the email entry login for former users. We have also added Facebook friends screen for those who log in for the first time to let them know, if their friends are playing Almwajaha.

01. Entry screen

02. Registration

03. Sign in

04. Adding friends

Main screen

Almwajaha is a spectacular game that allows users to compete in different areas of knowledge such as science, sports, literature, movies and many more. Users are able to play with random opponents as well as with their friends, communicate in the internal chat and fight in the rating game to acquire achievements.

05. Main screen

06. Opponent selection

07. Category selection

08. Searching for opponent

Gameplay

The game itself is taking place on the separate screen, where the question and possible answers are displayed. After choosing the answer, they are highlighted for each player separately, so as the correct answer. Brand categories allow to compete in knowledge of the certain brand to receive prizes from that sponsor.

09. Game rounds

10. Question

11. Victory screen

12. Sponsor category

Social activity

Thanks to communication features, we were able to increase the immersive effect of the game. The existing social activity system was reworked: redesigned profile screen considering the new functionality, friends lists, and chat interfaces, resulting in much more convenient usage.

13. Player profile

14. Friends list

15. Conversation list

16. Chat

Avatars

One of the biggest problems of previous application version was the absence or terrible quality of user avatars. In addition to new interface we have drawn new ones in casual style with bright colors and flavor of the east.

Achievements and rewards

We have developed achievements system to reward the users and increase the retention. There are almost all kinds of achievements appear to be in the game: event acquired, tracking, multi-leveled and lots of others.

17. Achievements screen

18. Locked achievement

19. Unlocked achievement

20. Recieving the reward

Achievements icons

We have drawn more than 50 icons for different levels, conditions and animations, 20 of them are absolutely unique. We tried to implement bright colors and simple forms. All kinds of logic games, prominent people of art and category thematics were used for inspiration.

Rating system

The analytics have shown that new players are afraid of ladder: top players with huge amount of points seem to demotivate them. So we have developed the rating system, consisting of three leagues: Silver League, Gold League and Hall of Fame. The main idea behind this system is that each league is used by appropriate type of players (casual, midcore, hardcore), and separates beginners and experienced players.